Gleason's Sporting World: Mets, fans deserve break from bad luck

Points to ponder while wondering when the Mets and their fans will be rewarded for enduring some of the cruelest, nastiest, impossibly bad luck known to a professional sports franchise.

Kevin Gleason

Points to ponder while wondering when the Mets and their fans will be rewarded for enduring some of the cruelest, nastiest, impossibly bad luck known to a professional sports franchise.

Really, this nightmarish stretch of bad fortune has to turn golden at some point. It just has to.

The folks at bodog.com must be equipped with promising odds on the Mets catching a break or three sometime before the end of this century, no? It's just unbelievable.

Each week arrives a new injury or gloomy injury prognosis. The other day we learned Ike Davis could miss the rest of the season. Then Chris Capuano left a game injured, which wouldn't be quite as bad if Johan Santana were on course to return from his injury, which would be less noticeable if David Wright were in the lineup, which would be easier to take if Jose Reyes' future with the team were secure.

The Mets should change their logo to a black cat walking under a ladder. Deer strolling along the Thruway's passing lane have better luck than this franchise.

Of course, all that horrific luck is well-complemented by incompetence at the top, which brings us to Reyes and the matter of a contract extension.

Let me get this straight. The Mets didn't want to extend his contract before the season. Their owner went on record saying Reyes was silly to expect Carl Crawford money, which amounts to seven years and $142 million.

Now, with Reyes having an MVP-caliber year, the Mets thought it might be a good idea to open contract talks.

Reyes must have spit out his Cheerios when he heard that proposal. The fact he was able to reply, "No thanks, I'll wait until after the season" with a straight face constitutes Reyes' most amazing accomplishment all season.

Fred Wilpon might be right about Reyes not getting Crawford money on the open market. There's another stack of money Reyes isn't going to get. He isn't going to get Fred Wilpon's money.

Mostly because there doesn't appear to be enough of it available.

Thank goodness Hanley Ramirez is a spectacular talent, because by all indications, he isn't earning millions off his attitude.

He's back in the news for a lack of hustle, something Ramirez clearly considers optional, and showing up late, and you can bet interim manager Jack McKeon scored points in the clubhouse when he started his new job by leaving Ramirez out of the lineup.

I guess running out on a $27 bar tab, according to police, makes Seahawks defensive end Raheem Brock the ultimate speed rusher.

Brock's party allegedly was asked to leave the restaurant after one of them brought in food from another place. And you didn't think the lockout was having an economic effect on players.

What's the big deal about a Red Sox fan catching a foul ball in his beer cup?

Now if a Sox fan caught a ball in his soda cup, that would be big news.

Wouldn't the Mets holding K-Rod to fewer than 55 games finished solve a few problems? It would save the team from paying him a $17.5 million option, and it would save the Mets from losing a few extra games.

Not to mention the countless cases of angina it would save fans.

Sitting through another Barry Bonds trial would be like watching the trial of a guy who stole your bike 13 years ago. It's just not that big a deal anymore.

The feds had their shot at Bonds. They couldn't get him out. Now, let us get on with trying to forget about him.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Kenny Britt hasn't been arrested in the past few hours, which just might be a personal record for the Titans' receiver out of Rutgers.

For the life of me, I just can't imagine Scott Boras trying to steal Reyes from his current agent, can you?

The "Football Cops" commercial on DirecTV starring Peyton and Eli Manning — with a cameo by Archie — is hysterical.

Those displaced Super Bowl fans are making so many demands that any day now they are going to want a part in the owner-player negotiations.

I have to admit, Metta World Peace wasn't among the name changes I would have predicted for Ron Artest.

There were two unexpected pieces to the story of the woman who invaded the soccer pitch in England and was escorted off by security and placed in a holding cell.

She was a 63-year-old great grandmother. She wasn't a Little League parent.

How about the Rays, who for a July 2 game are paying tribute to the 1951 Tampa Smokers by wearing the uniforms of their minor-league predecessors, but leaving out the cigars that adorned the original jerseys?